Sending Forth...

I had a dream yesterday morning - Thanksgiving morning - in which a woman approached me seeking wisdom. Here is what I shared with her. I am happy that I remembered this dream, as it is obviously information that is beneficial to me, and maybe you will find it useful as well. I hope so...

November 25, 2010 Thanksgiving
...I tell her about projecting love forward. That if we project our love out in front of us - forward - that there can be no failure, no disappointment, nothing other than joy or success or satisfaction and connection. No matter what happens, if what we project is love, is our essence, our soul in its divine radiant purity, there is nothing but good that can come from this. There can then be no fear, no scarcity, no lack, no loss. There will always be love, no matter what, because it is what we are putting out in front of ourselves. While I am explaining this, I am seeing a bright white light with indigo edges, projecting forth from my heart, extending several feet in front of me. Sort of like a small lightning burst that is continuous in flow...

A River of Words & Images

Please join us this Friday, if you're in the neighborhood..
You'll still be full from Thanksgiving leftovers, and some lively poetry and a float down our "River of Words & Images" will be just the thing to keep you inspired through the weekend!

Change of scenery...

I'm not sure why, but it seems that each time I come down to St. Augustine, I somehow bring the cool air of the mountains with me. I am told it was very warm right up until the evening I arrived, and that it will get back up to 80 degrees, oh, on Wednesday, which is the day I had scheduled to drive home. The drive down was really nice this time, with dramatic skies just about all the way, a beautiful sunset over rivers and marshes as I was between Savannah and Jacksonville and some rain on the last stretch with some good thunder and lightning.

Anyway - good thing I'm really here to help with the restaurant some, rather than to get a tan. Cool or not, it's been sunny and beautiful and a bit breezy. It's been nice to spend some time with family and niece and nephews continue to grow and grow interesting. I loved going to Mauro's soccer game and watching all the kids cluster on the field and kick the ball at each other and sometimes into the goals.

Last night was an oyster roast at Genung's Fish Camp, and today Stephen is participating in the "Chowder Debate," where St. Augustinians will see how good his Minorcan Chowder really is!

Progress...

I drove up to Sylva today to collect my work from the show - this Summer's work - and bring some of it home. Sometimes when I take a show down I get a heavy heart. It's sometimes hard to make new work when recent work is still around. And then there is the period of gestation that is a necessary part of this artist's process. So much of the process is internal and interactive with the world. Taking in ideas, images, places, people, silence, ocean, river, rock... and then having something inside that pushes to be embodied in object or word. Today, while driving, I was inspired by the late fall color as I drove over the hills and mountains. Even the kudzu had turned to a splotchy gold and green. Some words came out of this...

COLLECTING THE WORK OF THE SUMMER

Rolling over the hills from Franklin
up toward Dillsboro and on to Sylva,
rusty golden Tulip Poplar, fading yellow American Sycamore
cadmium yellow Hickory, burnt at the edges -
all glowing like short flames
dancing their last breath
over dying embers.
Smoldering ruddy reds
gather above muted green laurels,
and down below, scraggly
ghosts of Hemlock strain to stand,
trunks and limbs giving last life
to moss and lichen.
All go to rest now -
some to wake in Spring,
some to sink to the floor,
soak in next season’s snowfall,
melt into dark soil and forget
only to remember what it’s like
to be a wildflower,
see things from a different vantage
point upwards, facing their grandchildren.

Patterns...

Patterns in nature always intrigue me - from the bark on a tree to the strange synchronicities we experience in our dreaming and waking lives. Lately I have been having a recurring theme in my dreams about clothes - needing to wear certain clothes for certain situations. Now I am looking at these photographs of magnolia, rhododendron and sassafrass leaves I took a couple weeks ago - their patterns seem to mimic, among other things, highways and byways and the subdivisions between them. And at the same time they are the garments the trees are shedding as we pass from warmer to cooler, from active to more subdued time of year. Looking closely at the patterns within the sassafrass leaves, I am drawn into their spaces and shapes and am inclined to blow them up and print them out and put them around me. There is fluidity in the pattern here, as if there is a progression and order within it, and as if I might see movement in here if I continue looking - one of the white dots in a green area might march into the next quadrant and talk to another white dot in a red or yellow area, maybe tell it that the time has come to shift to the next hue...